Developer to break ground on North Hills retirement community next week

Kisco Senior Living has scheduled a groundbreaking for next week for The Cardinal, the retirement community planned for Raleigh’s North Hills.

The project is a joint venture between Kisco and Health Care REIT, an Ohio real estate investment trust that owns a 6-acre parcel on the east side of Six Forks Road adjacent to the Park & Market apartments.

The facility will be a continuing-care retirement community, or CCRC. CCRCs offer a range of medical services – skilled nursing, assisted living, independent living – that let residents stay in one place as their needs change. The state regulates CCRCs to ensure that residents are receiving proper care and to make sure the projects are financially sound.

The Cardinal will include 165 independent-living units as well as 60 units for assisted living, nursing care and memory care for residents suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s. Kisco officials said last month that they expected to have deposits from about 100 people for the independent-living units by the end of March.

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Unlike other CCRCs in the Triangle, the Cardinal will be a rental model. To secure a residency, a resident has to put up two months of rent and service fees. The average deposit is between $9,000 and $10,000.

The Cardinal will be the second CCRC to be built in North Carolina since 2008. SearStone, a 169-unit community in Cary, opened in November.

The industry struggled during the recession, largely because of the downturn in the housing market. Many residents finance the move to CCRCs by selling their homes.

California-based Kisco also operates Magnolia Glen and the Abbotswood at Stonehenge retirement communities in Raleigh and Woodland Terrace in Cary.